30 



[February, 



Weigi (|iFfeih| e 



A VINEYARD ON THE RHINE. 



The Royal Academy for instruction in 

 fruit and wine culture is located at Geisen- 

 heim- on -the -Rhine, twenty miles below 

 Mainz. Johannisberg, Riidesheirn, and Gei- 

 senheim are the three villages where the 

 most famous of the Rhine wines are made ; 

 and the comparative excellence of the three 

 brands stands in the order in which I have 

 named the places that produce them. These 

 towns are within half an hour's walk of each 

 other, and one can see them all at once from 

 any hill on the river's bank. Geisenheim is 

 a fine old German village, with narrow, 

 roughly paved streets and quaint dwellings, 

 some of which were standing, I believe, 

 when the ancient robber-knight watched the 

 Rhine from the castles whose ruins now 

 crown the heights above. 



The Geisenheim Academy was established 

 by the Government ten years ago, and its 

 purpose is to conduct experiments and make 

 experts in fruit and grape culture. Its 

 buildings occupy an elevated slope above 

 the town, and the experimental grounds 

 comprise altogether some fifty acres, divided 

 for special products into five different in- 

 closures. All that I have seen or heard in 

 the course of my inspection shows the thor- 

 oughness and accuracy peculiar to the Ger- 

 man system of special education ; and the 

 extreme kindness of the officers, especially 

 the director and the chief gardener, has 

 made my task pleasant as well as profitable. 

 November 3d, I spent several hours in the 

 Experimental Vineyard, which occupies six 

 and a half acres on a southern exposure, a 

 hundred feet or more above the Rhine. It 

 contains three hundred and fifty varieties, 

 which may be divided, as to color, into 

 black, white, green, purple, and red. 



The entire experiment in vine-growing is, 

 I hardly need say, only a patient and pro- 

 tracted search for an answer to the question, 

 " What Grape will produce the best quality 

 of wine?" Even if the vine bearing such 

 ideal clusters were found, it must still fulfill 

 certain other conditions, or it will be com- 

 paratively worthless. It must be produc- 

 tive, hardy, seasonable, and, above all, it 

 must, either by its own root or by graft, 

 repel the phylloxera. This terrible grape- 

 pest, by the way, has not yet reached the 

 Rhine ; but it is only fifty miles distant, and 

 its coming is looked for with a great dread. 

 The York Madeira is found to be proof 

 against its ravages, and the root is, for this 

 reason, now used everywhere on the, Rhine 

 for grafting. 



But the vineyard is full of interest as a 

 mere picture. The straight rows run up 

 and down the slope, three and a half feet 

 apart, and at intervals of ten yards they are 

 cut at right angles by walks six feet wide. 

 The stakes, • which are uniformly four feet 

 high and two inches in diameter, are set a 

 foot apart in the row. Each variety occu- 

 pies half the row, which runs from walk to 

 walk, and has generally five stocks, whose 

 branches are spread and neatly tied to fif- 

 teen or eighteen stakes. In this way every 

 variety under experiment is accessible from 

 one of the walks, so that the experimenter 

 can easily note its progress. The entire 



ground is a model of clean culture, and not 

 a single weed can be found in the whole six 

 and a half acres. 



Though the peasants have assured me that 

 the wine-crop this year is a failure, yet the 

 Grapes on many of these varieties hang just 

 above the ground in clusters that are won- 

 derfully beautiful and abundant. Here is 

 the whole catalogue of German wine Grapes, 

 and Grapes from Greece, Portugal, France, 

 England, and America to boot. My guide, 

 Professor Seligmuller, proposes, in the kind- 

 ness of his heart, that I taste a specimen 

 of each of the varieties ; but that, I tell him, 

 with thanks, is a task far beyond my capa- 

 city. I taste of twenty or thirty only, and 

 find them all delicious. Even our old friends, 

 the Isabella and Catawba, have been im- 

 proved in flavor by expatriation ; but this 

 does not save them, for the Professor, who 

 kindly makes entries in my note-book, has 

 written after both an epithet that means 

 " worthless," and after one of them is added 

 the adjective " fuchsig," which inrplies that 

 it has been weighed in the balance for 

 " foxiness," and not found wanting. 



These experiments have lasted several 

 years, and though many sorts have proved 

 their value, no superior variety has yet been 

 found ; and the old White Riesling is still 

 master of the situation, being, par excellence, 

 the wine-Grape of the Rhine. But when the 

 phylloxera comes, the Riesling must go, and 

 be replaced by some hardier vines whose 

 roots are capable of resisting the destroyer. 

 Several new varieties produced by crossing 

 are on trial, but it is not time as yet to de- 

 termine their rank. Indeed, it requires ten 

 years to test an old vine from a foreign 

 climate, and not less than fifteen to produce 

 a new one and establish its character. The 

 Professor holds that it is glory enough for 

 any one man to create a single superior vine 

 and settle its genuineness by twenty years 

 of assiduous watching and patient waiting. 

 Think of that, ye restless mortals at home, 

 who demand that an experiment requiring 

 more than a decade shall be completed and 

 its results announced in a couple of seasons ! 



I might go on to describe the incidental ex- 

 periments also in progress on these grounds, 

 namely : the various chemicals applied to 

 the stakes to increase their durability ; the 

 different methods of pruning to stimulate 

 productiveness ; the dozen commercial fer- 

 tilizers repeatedly pitted against " cow-ma- 

 nure" in Grape-raising, and always beaten; 

 but I forbear. Across the ocean comes the 

 editorial precept: "Write clearly; point- 

 edly, if you can ; but, at all events, briefly." 



But, before I leave this attractive spot, 

 let me give a single glance at the landscape 

 around. In the rear, terrace above terrace, 

 rise the vine-covered steeps; and in front I 

 look down upon the dark-slated and red-tiled 

 roofs of Geisenheim. Along the farther side 

 of the ancient town runs the famous river; 

 directly opposite, at the mouth of the river 

 Nahe, lies the old picturesque town of Bingen, 

 renowned in legend and song ; to the right, 

 the beautiful castle Rheinstein, now rebuilt 

 in its original style, and richly furnished; 

 and farther still, even to a dim distance, great 

 masses of mountain reach upward and mass 

 their rugged outlines against the sky. There 

 are other picturesque rivers and mountains 

 on this planet of ours, but none, as I think, 

 quite equal to the region of the Rhine. — 

 President A. S.Welch, in New York Tribune. 



SLUG-HUNTING. 



One of the pleasures of European garden- 

 ing for ladies consists in hunting for slugs, 

 which Emily Culverhouse describes in Gar- 

 dening Illustrated as follows : " Armed with 

 a lantern, and child's toy-pail, containing 

 a little pickle of salt and soda, in my left 

 hand, and a pair of slug-tongs in the right 

 hand, I go out hunting every fin« evening, 

 and I have destroyed this season over six 

 thousand slugs, snails, wire-worms, leather- 

 grubs, etc., in my small garden-plot. The 

 enemies are easily seen, caught, and killed ; 

 and surely this method is more humane than 

 to cut the slugs asunder with scissors, or 

 spike them with needle-points on the end of 

 a stick. The tongs are simply made of a 

 piece of thick galvanized iron wire, about 

 twenty-four inches long, bent to the shape 

 of a pair of fire-tongs, and the ends beaten 

 flat for about an inch." 



AN OLD GARDEN. 



The palace and garden of the Conti Giusti, 

 Verona, Italy, described in the London Gar- 

 den, have been in uninterrupted possession 

 of the family for over eleven hundred years. 

 The garden, which is purely Italian in style, 

 is furnished with hedges of Privet and Box, 

 cut mural fashion, two feet or more thick, 

 and some eight feet in height. Its most 

 striking features are its gigantic Cypress 

 trees, of which there are more than two hun- 

 dred specimens, some looking very healthy 

 and youthful, though from six to seven hun- 

 dred years old, and from one hundred and 

 ten to one hundred and thirty feet in height. 

 A horizontal Cypress growing here, said to 

 be over one thousand years old, is fourteen 

 feet in circumference at three feet from the 

 ground, and is one hundred and twenty feet 

 high. 



RAILWAY GARDENING. 



In many parts of Belgium, the land 

 belonging to railway companies has been 

 planted with fruit-trees and other things 

 many years ; and in Wurtemberg, for about 

 twelve years past, a forester has had charge 

 of the lands. He pays particular attention 

 to planting the slopes of excavations and 

 embankments to prevent washing and slip- 

 ping, grows quick fences, and, where prac- 

 ticable, fruit and timber trees. The gardens 

 at the stations are largely devoted to fruit, 

 and so made useful and ornamental at once. 

 A profit of about fourteen dollars an acre 

 has, it is said, been made for the past five 

 years. — Engineer. 



STRAWBERRIES FOR TABLE DECORATION, 



Strawberries, as a rule, are grown to eat; 

 but there is no reason why they shoiild not 

 gratify the eye as well as the palate, and, in 

 fact, I prefer the sight of a Strawberry- 

 house, full of fruit in the various stages of 

 development, to all other sights in the gar- 

 den. For dinner-table decoration, a center- 

 piece, or two side groups, consisting of about 

 half a dozen pots of ripe Strawberries, bedded 

 in moss, is, according to my idea, perfection, 

 the foliage being so ornamental, and the 

 glistening fruit under strong light so tempt- 

 ing. Any one who has only had Strawberries 

 handed round should try how much better 

 they are when gathered from the growing 

 plants on the table. — London Garden. 



